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alexcannotread's Reviews (224)
“Jack Torrance thought: Officious little prick.”
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Jack Torrance is an alcoholic with a bad temper. His wife, Wendy, has been on the verge of leaving with their six year old son, Danny, who has an uncanny ability to know what people are thinking and what will happen in the future. After losing his job as a school teacher, Jack gets on the wagon and takes up a job as caretaker of the Overlook hotel, hoping he can finish his unfinishable play and mend his family life back together. But the past of the Overlook is still living, and it wants to keep the Torrance's as their next permanent guest.
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(There are a few spoilers from this point on.)
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As my 11th King read, this is the most depressing book of his that I’ve read. The unhappiness of the characters hits you instantly within the first couple of pages of the book. There was also an incredible amount of foreshadowing from the start, so you're left in suspense, waiting for the worst to happen.. this might also be the reason why I didn't feel as frightened by this book. I was more expectant of everything (and no, I have not watched the move).
This might just be a "me" thing, but I tend to end up hating female main characters when there's more then one narration. This book definitely fit my stereotype because I couldn't help myself from hating Wendy and sympathizing with Jack - and could you blame me? In his defense, he got himself to stop drinking for months (despite his constant nagging urges) and he took up a job he didn't want to support his family. I felt bad that he was stuck in a limbo of guilt and repentance, and of course, and inability to finish his play that had imprisoned his creative mind (and possibly his ability to fully heal his mental state).
Wendy couldn't move on from his mistakes and was too protective of Danny to be aware of how the hotel was taking its shape. While the hotel was slowing stealing away her husband's sanity and giving prophetic nightmares to her son, she couldn't step away from the convictions of Jack being a hazard and the future being uncertain (well, I guess she got the latter right). It was slightly infuriating, but then again, she did have to deal with a raging alcoholic for years, so I can understand it.
What did annoy me was the fact that she was so ready to assert blame on Jack when the hotel (NOT Jack) started to physically attack Danny, but then completely willing to take all blame away from Jack when he was literally to kill them. He became a monster, that was easy to decipher, but how she was able to tell the difference when he had gone down a similar drunken path before? I don't know. He might have stepped up to murder by now, but this wasn't the first time his anger had turned physical. It seemed like the most unrealistic thing to me (in this story of horrific fantasy), but then again, they were also being stalked by dead people from the 20's. So I guess conclussions are easy to jump to.
This review sounds mostly negative, but I think it's hard for it not to be. Every character (save for Halorann and Danny) are worth hating. But don't get me wrong - I still thought this story was amazing. I gave this 4 stars because the writing is incredible and the suspense was really what kept blowing me away. Some parts felt a little bit slow, but it was for the most part well-paced and definitely entertaining. The characters weren't fantastic in my opinion, but then again, they weren't written to be. They were written to be broken and jaundiced and in that sense King hit a bulls-eye.
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Jack Torrance is an alcoholic with a bad temper. His wife, Wendy, has been on the verge of leaving with their six year old son, Danny, who has an uncanny ability to know what people are thinking and what will happen in the future. After losing his job as a school teacher, Jack gets on the wagon and takes up a job as caretaker of the Overlook hotel, hoping he can finish his unfinishable play and mend his family life back together. But the past of the Overlook is still living, and it wants to keep the Torrance's as their next permanent guest.
----
(There are a few spoilers from this point on.)
----
As my 11th King read, this is the most depressing book of his that I’ve read. The unhappiness of the characters hits you instantly within the first couple of pages of the book. There was also an incredible amount of foreshadowing from the start, so you're left in suspense, waiting for the worst to happen.. this might also be the reason why I didn't feel as frightened by this book. I was more expectant of everything (and no, I have not watched the move).
This might just be a "me" thing, but I tend to end up hating female main characters when there's more then one narration. This book definitely fit my stereotype because I couldn't help myself from hating Wendy and sympathizing with Jack - and could you blame me? In his defense, he got himself to stop drinking for months (despite his constant nagging urges) and he took up a job he didn't want to support his family. I felt bad that he was stuck in a limbo of guilt and repentance, and of course, and inability to finish his play that had imprisoned his creative mind (and possibly his ability to fully heal his mental state).
Wendy couldn't move on from his mistakes and was too protective of Danny to be aware of how the hotel was taking its shape. While the hotel was slowing stealing away her husband's sanity and giving prophetic nightmares to her son, she couldn't step away from the convictions of Jack being a hazard and the future being uncertain (well, I guess she got the latter right). It was slightly infuriating, but then again, she did have to deal with a raging alcoholic for years, so I can understand it.
What did annoy me was the fact that she was so ready to assert blame on Jack when the hotel (NOT Jack) started to physically attack Danny, but then completely willing to take all blame away from Jack when he was literally to kill them. He became a monster, that was easy to decipher, but how she was able to tell the difference when he had gone down a similar drunken path before? I don't know. He might have stepped up to murder by now, but this wasn't the first time his anger had turned physical. It seemed like the most unrealistic thing to me (in this story of horrific fantasy), but then again, they were also being stalked by dead people from the 20's. So I guess conclussions are easy to jump to.
This review sounds mostly negative, but I think it's hard for it not to be. Every character (save for Halorann and Danny) are worth hating. But don't get me wrong - I still thought this story was amazing. I gave this 4 stars because the writing is incredible and the suspense was really what kept blowing me away. Some parts felt a little bit slow, but it was for the most part well-paced and definitely entertaining. The characters weren't fantastic in my opinion, but then again, they weren't written to be. They were written to be broken and jaundiced and in that sense King hit a bulls-eye.
